Here We Go Again

A
close read of President Bush's November addresses at the National Endowment
for Democracy in Washington and at the Whitehall Palace in London leads
a traditionalist almost to despair.

George
Bush did not write this democratist drivel. This is the kind of messianic
rhetoric he probably never heard before he became president. Who is
putting these words in his mouth? For if George Bush truly intends to
lead a "global democratic revolution," and convert not only
Iraq but the whole Middle East to democracy, he has ceased to be a conservative
and we are headed for endless conflicts, disappointments, disillusionment
and tragedy.

At London,
he called a "commitment to the global expansion of democracy"
both "the alternative to instability and to hatred and terror"
and "the third pillar of our security." But before he wagers
our security on a crusade for democracy, Bush should ask the hard questions
no one seems to have asked before he invaded Iraq.

Where
in the Constitution is he empowered to go around the world destabilizing
governments? Can he truly believe that by hectoring such autocracies
as Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, America is more secure? Who comes
to power if Mubarak goes in Cairo, the Saudi monarchy falls, or Musharaff
is ousted in Pakistan? If memory serves, the last wave of popular revolutions
in the region gave us Nasser, Khadafi, Saddam and the Ayatollah.

With $200
billion sunk into democratizing Iraq and Afghanistan, how many more
wars does Bush think Americans will support before they decide to throw
the interventionist Republicans out?

Where
did he get the idea we are insecure because the Islamic world is not
democratic? The Islamic world has never been democratic. Yet, before
we intervened massively there, our last threat came from Barbary pirates.
Lest we forget, Muhammad Atta and his comrades did not plot their atrocities
in the Sunni Triangle, but in Hamburg and Delray Beach.

Surveys
shows that Islamic people bear a deep resentment of U.S. dominance of
their region and our one-sided support for Israel. Interventionism is
not America's solution, it is America's problem.

It was
our earlier intervention in the Gulf War and our huge footprint on the
sacred soil of Saudi Arabia that lead directly to 9-11. They were over
here because we were over there.

If one-man,
one-vote comes to Pakistan, what do we do if that nuclear nation supports
a return of the Taliban? What do we do if the Iraqi regime that takes
power after free elections tells us to pack up and get out, and declares
the liberation of Kuwait and its return to the embrace of the motherland
to be as vital to Baghdad as the return of Taiwan is to Beijing?

Freedom,
the president said, "must be chosen and defended by those who choose
it." Exactly. Why not then let these Islamic peoples choose it
on their own timetable and defend it themselves?

It is
"cultural condescension," says Bush, "to assume the Middle
East cannot be converted to democracy. ... Perhaps the most helpful
change we can make is to change in our own thinking."

But if
22 of 22 Arab states are non-democratic, this would seem to suggest
that this soil is not particularly conducive to growing the kind of
democracies we raise in upper New England. This may be mulish thinking
to the progressives at NED, but it may also be common sense.

What support
is there in history for the view that as we meddle in the affairs of
foreign nations, we advance our security? How would we have responded
in the 19th century if Britain had declared a policy of destabilizing
the American Union until Andrew Jackson abolished slavery?

"Liberty
is both the plan of Heaven for humanity and the best hope for progress
here on earth." Is it? Before democracy became our god, we used
to believe that salvation was Heaven's plan for humanity, and Jesus
Christ was the way, the truth and the life.

The neocons
have made democracy a god, but why is George W. Bush falling down and
worshiping their golden calf?

The last
time we heard rhetoric like Bush's at NED and Whitehall Castle was the
last time we were bogged down in a war. LBJ declared that America's
goal was far loftier than saving South Vietnam. We were going to build
a "Great Society on the Mekong."

Like Woodrow
Wilson, Bush has been converted to the belief that democracy is the
cure for mankind's ills. But our Founding Fathers did not even believe
in democracy. They thought they were creating a republic  a republic
that would be secure by remaining free of the wars of the blood-soaked
continent their fathers had left behind. How wrong they were.

Patrick J. Buchanan was twice a candidate for the Republican presidential
nomination and the Reform Partys candidate in 2000. He is also
a founder and editor of the new magazine, The
American Conservative. Now a commentator and columnist, he
served three presidents in the White House, was a founding panelist
of three national television shows, and is the author of seven books.

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